Never Be Hurt Again

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This is a fairly common stock motivation, in which a character who has been abused, persecuted, or otherwise mistreated in the past is acting to make sure that this sort of thing never happens to them again. This can encompass anything from taking a few levels in badass to ensure they'll be able to defend themselves against future threats, to attempting to Take Over the World and overthrow the oppressive institutions that made them miserable, to refusing to care enough about anyone or anything to be hurt. The character may also wish to spare others from suffering like they did, but there needs to be at least some element of preemptive self-protection involved to fit the trope.

Examples:

The backstory for Crest of the Stars has the Abh overthrowing their human creators and masters, then going on to conquer most of the known universe, while in the process of conquering the rest.

In all adaptations of Astro Boy, Dr. Tenma's son is killed. In grief, Tenma builds a robotic replica of his son, Astro Boy, and because he has plenty of Mad Scientist in him, augments the android with ridiculous amounts of weaponry so that his new son can defend himself when threatened. In a more direct version of this trope, Astro constantly sees robots getting mistreated or destroyed, often himself included, and spends much of his time defending robots without harming humans.

In Berserk, the trope is invoked by those become Apostles. Since a Behelit is sure to appear in the hands of its owner when they reach their Despair Event Horizon, it is only natural that most willingly sacrifice their loved ones in order to become physically and emotionally invulnerable.

This is the reason Minatsuki acts the way she does in Deadman Wonderland. To keep anyone from abandoning her the way her mother did, she deliberately acts as crass and cruel as she can so that no one will ever get close to her.

The manga tie in for Devil May Cry 3 suggests that this is Dante's main motivation. After losing his mother to demons, he didn't get stronger to protect other people, it was so nothing like that could happen to him again.

The central conflict of Neon Genesis Evangelion is essentially this, with every major character having some aspect of this as their motivation. Pretty much all of the characters' Angst is caused by characters being unable to connect with other people for fear of being hurt. Shinji and Asuka being in love with but too frightened of each other to try and have a relationship leads to The End of the World as We Know It, that Shinji unleashes because he believes that no one loves him and everybody would hurt him. SEELE's end goal is essentially an attempt at this taken to its Logical Extreme.

Revy of Black Lagoon became what she is due to the horrible treatment she received at the hands of those in authority, from her drunken asshole of a father at home to the police on the streets. Revy's obsession with power is a direct response to her feeling of powerlessness during those years as a kid, and she never wants to go back to that again.

One Piece: This is the reason behind Boa Hancock's behaviour. After she and her sisters were made slaves in their childhood, she put on a strong, cruel image to prevent such a thing from ever happening again. It caused her surrogate mother figure to fear Hancock had really grown cold as ice, but fortunately, Luffy's actions proved that it wasn't the case.

Comic Books

Magneto, when he's given sympathetic motivations. He's a Holocaust survivor who doesn't want mutants to face the kind of genocidal bigotry he endured in his youth. Though it does kind of go against him when he has no qualms about doing that to humans.

In the Cacophony storyline, this is Batman's justification for saving The Joker's life at the end, in spite of Gordon's protests. He tells Joker that he became Batman so he could save people from dying, no matter what.

In the ElfQuest: Siege at Blue Mountain arc, this seems to be Winnowill's motivation for wanting to take all of the pure-blooded elves somewhere they can never be hurt again. For many of them, it doesn't end well.

In The Death of Superman, Doomsday's motivation for killing everything he sees is that he was created via a horrific experiment that involved dying multiple times (we're talking hundreds if not THOUSANDS of deaths). He thinks everything in the universe is a threat to his life and he's terrified of dying again.

Supergirl story arc Red Daughter Of Krypton starts out when Supergirl, who feels she's been manipulated and betrayed by everyone since she showed up on Earth several months ago, promises herself that she'll not be hurt again, and if life tries to hit her again, she's hitting back.

Supergirl: Dad. Kal. H'el. Siobhan. They ALL let me down. They all broke my heart. And now THIS. No more. Nobody gets away with hurting me ever again. Not THIS time!

In the Neon Genesis Evangelion fic A Crown of Stars, Asuka has been hurt by virtually everyone she knew (her parents, her step-mother, her guardians, the boy she liked...). As a result of it she does not want to let herself to fall in love because she does not want to be hurt again. Another character warns her that attitude will get her hurt anyway.

In the The King of Fighters fic Sore ga Ai, Deshou?, Andy, as a result of constantly being shunted back and forth between numerous foster families, has difficulty opening up to people and forming any real attachments; his personal motto is "Don't get attached, don't get hurt."

Zootopia: After being bullied and rejected by prey animals as a child, Nick decided to never let others get to him ever again.

Films — Live-Action

Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind: "As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again!"

This has been used as Spartacus' motivation in several fictionalisations.

Hitch: Part of Hitch's backstory - in his younger days he loved and was very devoted to a woman who broke his heart by cheating on him with a cooler guy, with the reason that he was too average. In explaining it, he blatantly says he set out to ensure the same thing never happens to anyone else or himself - he reinvents himself to become the very pinnacle of charm, and then becomes the "Date Doctor" to give average guys real romantic chances that would otherwise never come their way.

The Pigeon Lady in Home Alone 2 tells Kevin that she was hurt by a man who didn't love her back, so never let herself the possibility of having her heart broken again. That's why she was alone, that, and the pigeon poop.

In A Brother's Price, after her abusive husband Keifer Porter died, Princess Trini does not want to marry again, as a new husband could be just the same. (While he was bad for the whole family, he raped and tortured only Trini, and was more subtle with the others) This causes problems because it prevents her sisters from marrying, too - all sisters marry one husband, due to male Gender Rarity Value in the setting. She is also protective of people who are in danger of facing the same fate she did - when she is told that the Porters intend to make an offer for Jerin, she neglects her own safety to help. By agreeing to marry Jerin herself.

The main character of The Kingkiller Chronicle mentions this as one of several motivations for attending Wizarding School. (How truthful he was being is currently unknown—especially since the series isn't finished yet.)

Alan Dean Foster's The Man Who Used The Universe. Kees vaan Loo-Macklin creates a criminal empire and a legitimate business empire and manipulates too many beings to name (both human and alien). He does this because he was abandoned as a child and grew up in a series of foster homes where he was mistreated because of his appearance, and was determined never to be helpless and mistreated again.

This is what sparks Tiffany Aching's desire to become a witch in her Discworld books. Specifically, there was an incident in which an odd but otherwise harmless old woman was turned out of her home, mistreated by the locals, and eventually died out in the cold because they believed her to be a witch. Tiffany's response was to want to become a real witch so anyone who ever wanted to pull a stunt like that again would have to go through her first.

Although she says "never be hungry again", a good deal of Scarlett O'Hara's ruthless behavior throughout the second half of Gone with the Wind can be attributed to this, as it's repeatedly stated that she's genuinely terrified of returning to the days of cold and poverty.

At the beginning of Words of Radiance, Kaladin is terrified that if he lets anyone know about his new Surgebinding powers, the lighteyes will take them away from him somehow. He knows perfectly well that that's impossible, but it doesn't really help.

House in House seems to be like this at times. His relationship with Stacy sent him into one period of emotional disengagement. Then when after his relationship with Cuddy goes bad, he refuses the affections of his green-card wife, apparently out of fear that sex with anyone who actually likes him (rather than hookers) might lead to attachment which will hurt him again. Of course, if you showed him this page on TV Tropes and said that it applied to him, he'd probably give you a Breaking Speech about what a moron you are for thinking it.

The Gua in First Wave were once enslaved by another race but eventually drove their oppressors off their world. They even renamed their entire race based on their victory: "Gua" means "the power to overcome". They pre-emptively conquer other worlds to ensure no one else is ever able to threaten them again. One of their leaders, Joshua, eventually sides with humanity when he realizes that humans also possess "Gua".

Once Upon a Time: Several characters, but special mention goes to Cora, who, after being forced to kneel and apologize to Eva, decides not to stop until everyone else is on their knees.

The Narn from Babylon 5, in the early seasons. Their motivation, which prompts their bullying, their expansion, their desire to crush the Centauri, is largely about ensuring that they'll never again be at the mercy of the Centauri. Commander Sinclair even explicitly compares them to abused children who have learnt to hit back and now abuse others in turn.

Ironically, the Centauri themselves: they used to be a peace-loving race before the Xon, the other sentient race from their homeworld, literally showed up from nowhere to enslave the Centauri and kill anyone who opposed. After the invasion (and a brief alien invasion), the Centauri killed every last Xon, took the stars as conquerors, and invented the mass drivers (whose use is considered a war crime).

Also, the reason many Humans despise aliens and/or are obsessed with acquiring overwhelming military force: during the Earth-Minbari War, Mankind was brought to the verge of extinction by the Minbari, and Earth's allies deserted them out of fear of the Minbari, and no Human want that to repeat.

It's also the reason Babylon 5 exists at all: the Earth-Minbari War started due a formidable case of Poor Communication Killsnote When EarthForce encountered the ship of the Grey Council, the Minbari ship opened the gunports as a sign of respect. The Minbari leader, fearing this would be misinterpreted, ordered to close the gunports as soon as he found out, but a power spike was mistaken for the weapons being charged, and, as the Minbari had not replied to earlier attempts at communication (mainly because they didn't understand English), the Human captain ordered to open fire right as the Minbari were being ordered to close the gunports, killing their leader, and after the war the Humans built the Babylon Stations as a meeting point where all races would be able to meet in peace and learn about each other.

The Founders (a race of changelings) use this as justification for running the Dominion. They tell Odo that millennia earlier, they were peaceful, but were met with brutal distrust and were hunted down. Thus, they founded the Dominion to ensure they would never be in a position of weakness ever again, breeding the remorseless Jem'Hadar to do their bidding on lesser species. However, there are subtle hints through the show that the prejudice against changelings did not start until after the Founders started their empire-building.

The Bajorans suffered a brutal fifty year occupation at the hands of the Cardassians and ex-freedom fighters like Major Kira make it quite clear they will never suffer such an indignity again. Indeed, this is what kick starts the series, as the first step to guaranteeing the Cardassians stay away is the Bajoran provisional government requesting Starfleet establish a naval presence at Bajor, so any attacks on Bajor will be an automatic act of war against the Federation.

On The 100, Lexa's response to the torture and murder of the girl she loved was to stop caring about anyone on an individual level and devote herself entirely to the well-being of her people as a whole.

The Simon & Garfunkel song "I Am A Rock" seems to describe the feelings of someone who doesn't want to love anymore because they were hurt by it once.

Don't talk of love, But I've heard the words before, It's sleeping in my memory. I won't disturb the slumber of feelings that have died. If I never loved I never would have cried.

The Wall: Pink gradually builds a wall throughout his life to protect him from being hurt emotionally, and realizes later that completing it wasn't such a good idea as it basically isolates him from everyone and drives him mad.

Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer: several justifications for falling to Chaos are protection against that god's particular domain. Mostly seen with Nurgle, the god of disease, whose followers are infested with pus-filled growths and oozing sores, but are no longer negatively affected by them, instead reveling in every new pox they develop.

Squall Leonhart of Final Fantasy VIII. The reason for his cold, detached demeanor was because his fellow orphan and sister, Ellone, left him alone as a child and he developed abandonment issues. He feels that, eventually, all friends and family will die or go away, and the only way to avoid the pain from that is to never let anyone in again.

The main antagonists in Star Control II, the Ur-Quan, have this motivation: they were once enslaved and hideously mistreated by the Dnyarri, and after winning back their freedom while suffering constant excruciating pain (which protected them from Mind Control), they decided the only way to make sure it never happened again was to enslave (Kzer-Za) or exterminate (Kohr-Ah) everybody else first.

In League of Legends, after Professor Stanwick Pididly stole credit for both the creation of Blitzcrank and the technology that revived Urgot, Viktor decided to protect himself from this happening again with his newest accomplishment - the transformation of himself into a killer cyborg. This both removes (mostly) the pain and anger he feels over his inventions being stolen, and demonstrates his own skill in a way that can't be stolen.

Babs Seed. She was bullied mercilessly for her lack of a cutie mark in Manehattan, and during a visit to Ponyville, joined up with resident bullies Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon to avoid getting bullied there too. Fortunately, the Cutie Mark Crusaders show kindness and acceptance to her condition, and she becomes much happier and calls them her friends.

Moondancer. After Twilight, the pony she considered her best friend, didn't show up for her first party and moved to Ponyville without a word, Moondancer was so heartbroken that she decided friendship just wasn't for her. Fortunately, Twilight eventually realizes she'd wronged Moondancer and their other friends in Canterlot and returns to make amends. After much effort, her apologies eventually get through to Moondancer and bring her out of her shell.

Starlight Glimmer was heartbroken when her foalhood friend Sunburst moved to Canterlot to study magic once he got his cutie mark, which she blamed for their separation. Starlight vowed to never make another friend fearing that another cutie mark would end those friendships as well, and this event inspired her to purge all ponies of their cutie marks.

In Star Wars Rebels, this is Ezra Bridger's motivation, although the way he goes about it evolves. His parents were taken by the Empire when he was seven, and he survived by refusing to rely on or connect to anyone. When he joins the Ghost crew and eventually adopts them as his new family, he becomes very protective of them, and trains to be a Jedi so he won't be helpless to save the people he cares about.

Real Life

Many nations with a recent or ancient history of being oppressed have carried this sentiment into the modern day, which results in rather thorny foreign policy. The problem is particularly severe in Africa and the Middle East where this trope often leads to violence but many other countries with reputations for being 'hard' or 'rugged' have felt this influence at some point.

Case in point: Israel, which actually went so far as to print the words "never again" on their first (totally hypothetical) nuke, and generally have it as a sort of unofficial motto. This is what happens when your country is founded entirely by hundreds of thousands of shell-shocked survivors of one of the most horrific genocides in human history. And add to those numbers the Mizrahi Jews who fled or were expelled from the Islamic world.

Finland. Basically every able-bodied male Finn (and a lot of women) is trained to be a soldier.

The Haitian revolution was originally put down under Napoleon Bonaparte, but after the French let their intent to re-enslave the Haitians be known, the war re-ignited and eventually led to the end of French rule.

Nat Turner's Rebellion, which involved killing all of the whites the rebels came across, was started for similar reasons.

Strangely, the Soviet Union might count for a significant period of time. Namely, from 1945 to about 1985, when the helm was taken by Mikhail Gorbachev, a man who hadn't been actively involved in politics or the military during World War II. The case had been made that the Soviet Union created its nuclear arsenal, a glacis of subjugated satellite states, and maintained a cripplingly huge military because its leaders and, actually, the whole country, were severely traumatised by the massive slaughter of the German attack.

This is often case with scholarly-minded children, especially boys, when they grow up. They are often mercilessly bullied and picked on at school, and once they graduate or otherwise get out of school, they often begin to train in martial arts, self-defence skills and some kind of armed combat to never let the childhood trauma renew. At best, the person may become a Badass Bookworm. At worst, a Broken Ace.

Bas Rutten, one of the most famous MMA fighters and commentators, was bullied as a child for his skin condition and scrawny constitution, and it made him start training. One of his partners in Japan, Minoru Suzuki, had a similar childhood.

Many join the armed forces for this very reason.

Similarly some therapists and social workers go into their line of work to prevent what happened to them (whether it be abuse, debilitating mental illness or attempted suicide) happening to anyone else.

This is also what happens with a number of bullied students that go on school shootings, which normally target their tormentors first in a desperate effort to make the bullying stop. On the other end of the spectrum they may go the nonviolent route and instead take their own lives to keep it from continuing.

It's been argued that sociopathy and other personality disorders are behavioral adaptations that people develop to cope with extreme situations in childhood and adolescence but which are maladaptive when trying to fit in or survive in society. Anti-social personality disorder sufferers have incredibly diminished empathy and a desire for control, paranoid personality disorder sufferers are pathologically unable to trust and always suspect people are taking advantage of them, Schizoid personality disorder sufferers use fantasy and withdrawal to cope with loneliness etc.

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